For
thousands of years Native American tribes lived the
good life provided by the waterways, beaches,
forests and easy-to-take climate of the Monterey
Bay. Then a few adventurous and avaricious Europeans
showed up...

At
the Sept. 12 RBDA meeting Chuck Striplen of the San
Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), of the Amah
Mutsun Tribal Band of the Ohlone/Costanoan Indians,
will speak on “The Re-emergence of a tribal presence
in the Monterey Bay Area: Opportunities for new
approaches in research and stewardship.”

His
talk will cover the experience of tribes of the
Santa Cruz Mountains through the mission period,
historic period, and recent efforts by the Amah
Mutsun to restore their role as landscape stewards.
While we in Bonny Doon are well-informed about the
natural endowments of our region, we may benefit
from a greater understanding of its earlier
inhabitants and their guardianship of our mountain.
Mr. Striplen, who represents the historic Mutsun and
Awaswas peoples of the Monterey Bay Area, is an
Associate Environmental Scientist with SFEI in
Richmond, CA. He specializes in the study of
California’s historical ecology, and the role tribes
play in shaping and maintaining resilient
landscapes.

Mr.
Striplen has received multiple degrees from UC Santa
Cruz and UC Berkeley, and is currently a PhD
candidate in Environmental Science, Policy and
Management at Cal. As an avid student of landscape
history and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Mr.
Striplen adds another layer of complexity to the
Historical Ecology Program’s analysis of the
physical and ecological characteristics of the
region’s wetlands, creeks, and terrestrial habitats
prior to major Euro-American colonization.

He
joined SFEI’s Historical Ecology Team in 2002. SFEI,
and its predecessor, the Aquatic Habitat Institute,
is fundamentally charged with facilitation and
development of scientific frameworks for addressing
San Francisco Bay Estuary management issues based on
sound peer-reviewed scientific protocols and dialog
among regulated entities, regulators and
policy-makers. Due to their focus on the scientific
method, they don’t take sides on environmental
issues nor have any political or financial interest
in the outcomes of their research and data
monitoring, so they are able to provide impartial
scientific interpretations to their clients.

Come
join us Sept. 12 for a fascinating evening that will
combine the rich history of the original peoples of
our area and a focus on ecological science.

Opinion
on Beauregard Vineyards an Uvaggio

What
does that headline mean? An uvaggio is a wine made
from different types of grapes. It could be good. It
could be bad. And that pretty much sums up the range
of opinions Bonny Dooners have offered on Ryan and
Rachel Beauregard’s proposal to expand the operating
permit for their winery to include the popular
summer Thursday dinner concerts, and expand the
legal limit for numbers of people allowed to be
there at one time.

A
little background for newbies to this controversial
topic: After a complaint by a neighbor to the
Planning Dept. prompted a letter in August warning
the Beauregards that they were operating beyond the
limits of their permit, they abruptly canceled the
Thursday evening events and decided to apply for an
expansion of the permit, which was originally
granted in 1988 to Bonny Doon Vineyard proprietor
Randall Grahm, from whom the Beauregards bought the
property about 4 years ago.

The
“Slice” Facebook page rattled with emotional posts.
Howls of disappointment from the many Dooners who
cherished the Thursday dinner concerts as a fun,
inexpensive, family friendly event which provided an
all-too-rare opportunity to get together, gossip and
meet other Dooners. Those who tended primarily to
see the events as an unwelcome urban intrusion on
the peace and quiet of our rural community, replete
with loud music and alcohol, greeted the news with
relief.

Your
RBDA Board solicited emails on the subject both to
try to determine community sentiment, and to better
understand exactly what people liked or didn’t like,
or saw as possible compromises. To date, we have
received a few dozen, and they generally were split
among the three shades of opinion: jeers, cheers or
suggestions for limits that would allow the events
to continue without unduly intruding on neighbors’
peace and quiet and impacting public health and
safety.

Some
cited the historical context of the winery site at
the intersection of Bonny Doon and Pine Flat roads.
The Lost Weekend, as it was known for a time, was an
informal affair in the 60s and 70s, open when owner
Mary Ricci felt like it, usually quiet (all activity
was indoors) and frequented by locals, except on
some dry season weekends, when cruising bikers from
Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Monterey counties made
it a regular pitstop, their amplified mufflers
competing with the incessant keening of the hundreds
of turkeys on the Simpkins’ ranch next door (long
gone now). Vintner Grahm had ambitious plans for a
restaurant/ entertainment venue but caved in to
neighborhood opposition.

Those
who responded to our request for input frequently
cited the lack of on-site parking and the traffic
and noise from the outdoor amplified music as the
biggest problems with the events, as well as a
concern that they weren’t apropos to the quiet
country lifestyle of Bonny Doon and might set a
precedent that would encourage others to start up
similar ventures. Proponents pointed to the strong
support that the Beauregards have given to the Fire
Team, the school and others, and the
community-building aspect of the Thursday
gatherings.

The
Beauregards’ existing permit limits events to 49
people, which has been far exceeded at the Thursday
dinner concerts, wine club “pickup parties,” and
other events. They would like to be able to have as
many as 200 guests at a time, which would require
off-site parking and a shuttle. Ryan and Rachel say
they want to put on the dinner concerts every other
Thursday from May through September. They are also
thinking of applying to have up to 6 weddings a year
and a morning coffee bar, plus the 2 annual new
release parties and 2 pickup parties.

Ryan
told The Highlander he has hired a land use
consultant to hold some preliminary meetings with
County planners, but that he probably won’t submit a
formal application until this fall at the earliest
because he is busy with his grape harvest, which he
said is very good and very welcome after last year’s
disastrous season.

The
application will have to go through a public hearing
in front of the Zoning Administrator and very likely
another in front of the Planning Commission. There
will be several opportunities for public input once
the application is submitted. It will be challenging
to reach a compromise that will satisfy everyone.
Any expansion of the current permit, which doesn’t
even allow outdoor amplified music, is necessarily
going to have its biggest impact on the immediate
neighbors, who now seem to be in the early stages of
organizing opposition.

Please
continue to email the RBDA with your views on the
Beauregards’ proposal, at board@rbda.us. It would be
helpful if you would let us know in the email if you
are an RBDA member.

Critical
LAFCO UCSC Decision Coming Up

After
nearly a year of postponements, amendments, legal
action, threats of more to come, and even possible
withdrawal by UCSC of its application, LAFCO may
take a final vote on Oct. 10 on whether to give the
City of Santa Cruz the green light to supply water
to the North Campus, and under what conditions.

At a
dramatic hearing on June 6, LAFCO (the Santa Cruz
Local Agency Formation Commission) considered
several versions of the conditions that would be
imposed on the City in order to supply the estimated
roughly 150 million gallons of water UCSC foresees
it needs to sustain its massive building project on
the lovely wooded upper campus in Bonny Doon, beyond
the city limits and east of Cave Gulch Creek. The
commissioners then agreed to postpone any action
until their October meeting, while a committee works
behind the scenes to craft conditions acceptable to
a majority of them that would protect the rights of
the City’s current water customers and provide
sufficient flow to revive the threatened salmonid
(Coho and steelhead) in the San Lorenzo River and
North Coast streams, which comprise virtually the
City’s entire water supply.

The
stickiest issues are how to implement a water
neutral policy (a second LAFCO committee is mulling
that) to offset the increased university use, and
how to guarantee that the demands of the National
Marine Fisheries Service and the California Dept. of
Fish & Game are met, i.e., that the City comply
with the federal Endangered Species Act by cutting
its water use from the river and streams by up to
25%. The agencies have told the City that “...it
does not appear that current water supplies are
sufficient to meet current demand and protect listed
salmonids, let alone allow for increased demands
resulting from expansion of the City’s service
area.”

At the
June 6 hearing, UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal,
obviously piqued at how long it’s taken for LAFCO to
reach a decision, and faced with the possibility of
strict conditions on its water use, threatened to
withdraw its application, which in our opinion would
be a violation of the landmark 2008 Comprehensive
Settlement Agreement which ended several lawsuits
over UCSC growth.

So
circle Oct. 10 on your calendars. This could be a
critical day in the 7-year long struggle to protect
the environment and Bonny Doon from some of the
impact of 3 million square feet of new buildings and
destruction of over 240 acres of unique animal and
plant habitat.

Dooners
May Get Stronger Voice About Monster Homes

The
RBDA Board has initiated a discussion with
Supervisor Neil Coonerty to get the County to reduce
the trigger point for the Large Dwelling Ordinance
(Santa Cruz County Code 13.10.325) from 7,000 to
5,000 sq. ft. Currently, if a proposed residence is
greater than 7,000 sq. ft. it is considered a “large
dwelling” or in common parlance, a mansion or
“monster house.” Such houses require a design
review, including a public hearing with the right to
appeal up to the Board of Supervisors. There have
been several abuses of this limit in Bonny Doon (see
November 2010 and March 2012 Highlanders on our
website, bonnydoon.got.net) and we feel that a lower
limit of 5,000 sq. ft. would reduce the abuses by
allowing neighbors to weigh in during the permit
process. A 5,000 sq. ft. house is still a very large
house by most standards. The Board of Supervisors is
expected to consider the changes in September.

Other
changes in the Large Dwelling Ordinance we proposed
will not be brought to the Board of Supervisors this
fall but are being sent by Supervisor Coonerty to
the Planning Dept. for review and discussion. These
additional changes include:

•Simplifying the calculation of a house’s
square footage to include the whole house. Currently
there are loopholes based on small details and
semantics that allow parts of a house to be
excluded. For example, lowering some ceiling heights
by a few inches or giving a room a different name
can allow a much larger house to avoid public
comment and review.

•Including appurtenant structures in the
trigger point and in the design review process. In
Bonny Doon much of the public impact of a mansion
can be in the outbuildings and other non-house
structures.

•Clarifying that the largest house in a
neighborhood does not define the appropriate size
for future dwellings but rather, taking into account
the neighboring house sizes.

•Clarifying that a public viewshed means the
view from any publicly accessible place.

•Making the design standards consistent for
those developments that need mitigation and those
that are designed right in the first place.
Currently, house designs that need mitigation have a
lower standard of compatibility with the
neighborhood.

•Making the neighbors’ privacy requirements
clear and consistent. Currently there are 3
different levels of neighbors’ privacy noted in the
code.

If you
would like to have some say in whether “monster
houses” or mansions are built next door to you,
please watch the agenda for the Sept 11 and the Sept
25 Board of Supervisors meeting at this
County link or contact us at board@rbda.us
and let us know you're interested in speaking when
the issue comes before the Board of Supervisors.

Talk
About Cheaper Gas Not a Lot of Hot Air

A
group of Bonny Doon residents met on Aug. 14 to
establish a Bonny Doon Propane Buyers Co-op in order
to negotiate more affordable propane prices with
companies serving the Bonny Doon area. The co-op’s
steering committee has requested that Bonny Doon
residents who are interested in the coop express
their interest by signing in on a Bonny
Doon Propane Coop Google Group Page.

There
is no obligation for just expressing interest and no
personal information of those who respond will be
shared with any propane suppliers, or with any other
group or business. The number of people who express
interest is important because the larger the co-op
is, the better the rate that can be negotiated.

Bonny
Doon residents who do not use computers, or prefer
to communicate by phone, may call and leave their
name and telephone number on the answering machine
at (831) 423-7790. Once a significant number of
residents express interest in participating, and
they are reportedly very close to that number at
press time, the steering committee can request
proposals from propane suppliers, based on that
number of potential customers.

It is
anticipated that the propane price for co-op members
may be as much as $1 per gallon less than the going
retail rate. The steering committee is also
reviewing options to get a better rate for those who
rent their propane tanks, and looking into how to
make the change of propane suppliers as seamless and
inexpensive as possible.

Time
to Begin Thinking About...

As
September rolls around every year, our main thoughts
turn to...? Well, conceivably yours, dear reader,
may turn to chopping up firewood for the rainy
season, cleaning out the gutters, getting the kids
ready for school... But ours (ok, call us weird)
turn to elections for the RBDA Executive Board!

The
work of protecting Bonny Doon from inappropriate
development is carried out by the RBDA Board, with
the support of our membership, of course. Without
people willing to volunteer their time and talent to
serve on the Board, the RBDA, which has served Bonny
Doon for 55 years, couldn’t exist. You may know that
elections for the RBDA Board take place at the
January public meeting, and nominations must be made
at the November meeting, so why are we writing about
it now? Because to run for the Executive Board
someone must have been an RBDA member in good
standing as of Nov. 1. Since our Bylaws state that
membership becomes effective 30 days after an
application is submitted and dues are paid, anyone
wishing to run for the board must already be a
member or have submitted an application by Oct. 1.
The next Highlander doesn’t come out until late
October, so that’s why we’re writing about it now.

If you
love Bonny Doon and want it to continue to remain
the kind of place that attracted you to live here in
the first place, seriously consider whether it isn’t
time to put in some time to ensure that that
happens. Become a member or make sure your
membership is up to date, and feel free to contact
the RBDA Board (our phone numbers and email address
are below, left) to talk about what is involved in
serving on the RBDA Board. It is far from a
full-time job, but it is a crucial one for “Keeping
Bonny Doon Rural and Natural.”

Bonny Doon's voice in preserving our special
quality of life,
The Highlander is mailed free to Bonny Doon
residents prior to the
RBDA General Meetings, which are usually held
on second Wednesdays of
January, March, May, July, September and
November.
We encourage you to participate.

Send mail correspondence to the
Highlander Editor at the above address,
or by email, below.